By Alvin Halimwidjaya
Fordham Women’s Tennis returned from a three-month hiatus, as the team traveled to Newark to participate in the NJIT Winter Invitational. Unlike many collegiate sports, there is no one true season for tennis. They open play in the fall with mainly non-team scoring matches and then take a three-month break in the end of October. The schedule following the hiatus is much more conventional and longer. The Rams played just one team-scoring match in the fall portion, taking down Seton Hall 6-1 at home on Oct. 15.
The Rams joined NJIT, Seton Hall and Army at West Point at the Naimol Family Athletic and Recreational Facility from Jan. 21-22 to kick off the second portion of their season with a non-team scoring tune-up.
Fordham started off 2017 with a mixed bag of results, with the team experiencing both victory and defeat.
The Rams started out the first day of the tournament with two wins in singles play, boding well for the rest of the invitational. In round one, sophomore Gianna Insogna bested NJIT’s Ines Vujkovac 6-1, 6-1. Sophomore Carina Ma followed Insogna’s victory by beating NJIT’s Rafaella Sampaio 6-2, 7-5 (10-7).
However, Fordham’s luck then took a turn for the worst, as the Rams’ singles play ended with two losses. Junior Estelle Wong lost to NJIT’s Nathalie Habegger 7-6 (6), 6-2. Freshman Maia Balce also fell to NJIT’s Natacha Minc 6-3, 4-6 (10-7) in the second round.
The Rams’ doubles play on the first day did not fare as well as singles had. The only doubles team to play Day One was the duo of senior Mayu Sato and sophomore Alexis Zobeideh. They dropped their match to the NJIT pair of Sampaio and Minc 7-6 (0).
The Rams fared better on the second day of the invitational, pulling out three wins in three matches. The doubles play was much improved, with Ma and Wong winning their match against the NJIT duo of Habegger and Alba Rosas 6-1 in round two, followed by the Fordham pair of Insogna and Balce overcoming NJIT’s Ines Vujkovac and Natalija Tasovac 6-1 in round three. Sato bounced back from her loss the previous day, defeating NJIT’s Alba Ross in singles play 7-5, 6-4.
“I definitely do think the [three] month layoff was cause for some of the rust we saw early on [Saturday] with the doubles,” said assistant coach Frank Russo. “That said, I think we settled down well and went 10-3 in singles in the afternoon and I thought we brought that into Sunday’s matches. The doubles was much better on Sunday and the singles was good, again.”
The Rams are hoping that the invitational will get them ready for the coming season. “Truth be told, there’s not much we can do about rust after the layoff,” said Russo. “Obviously everyone practices as much as possible but to be match tough is a different story. That’s why we play this Invitational – to get match tough for [Wednesday, against Drexel] and the upcoming conference play.”
The Rams continue competition in 2017 on Jan. 25, as they travel to Philadelphia to face Drexel in their first team-scoring match of the year.
